Russell, that is one VERY sweet griddle!!! Or is it a shallow skillet? Either way, I've seen a couple like yours, but they have all been wavier than a potato chip and just as cratered. Needless to say, I haven't picked one up yet. :-/ Thank you very much for posting the pics!!! it looks VERY nice.
I have a number of these small spout skillets in several sizes. I even have a couple that were milled or ground inside, though most seem not to be. I'd dearly love to figure out who made these iron pieces. I'm hoping that some day I'll stumble across the answer...
The Danville skillet I had in my hands today had a similar handle too, but I did get the story on Danville skillets from the seller. There were four or five foundries in Danville PA back in the day, but none made hollow ware as a business (one of the primary industries was casting train track rails). As the local story goes, one of the foundry workers brought in a skillet and used it to mold up and cast a handful of pans for himself and his coworkers (or their wives). It's thought that this was only done once, so they may have been intended as holiday gifts for the workers in the foundry. He said there are less than a dozen thought to be known. This was a pretty common occurrence in the local foundries however, making small runs of small iron castings at the end of the day. He had several other pieces of local casting that were of similar scarcity. He had had a second skillet but had sold many years ago. He said that all the Danville skillets he had ever seen had been identical save for slight differences in the gate marks.
This story jives with what my late grandfather told me. He worked his whole career at the Budd plant in Philly as a master tool and die maker. They had their own foundry too. The guys would cast their own stuff at the end of the day from whatever was left in the kettle, with the full knowledge and blessing from the company (he said, and I quote, "They didn't care."). I have a few of those pieces, a toy stove in cast aluminum, spoons and forks my grandfather made on the presses at the plant from scrap sheet metal.
I'll hopefully be bringing that pan home within the next week or so!!
